Saunders: Empty seats a sad sight

What was that line Smokey Robinson used?

There are some sad things known to man,

But ain't too much sadder than

The tears of a clown

When there's no one around.

I beg to differ, Great One of Smoke. Around these parts, especially in March, there isn't too much sadder than an ACC men's basketball tournament game when there's no one around.

Did you watch the tournament - also known as the Blue Devil Invitational - on TV? If so, you saw all of those empty seats throughout the Greensboro Coliseum.

Take Thursday night, the first round. Please. Now, empty seats on the first day aren't automatically cause for alarm, but they are when the Tar Heels and the Wolfpack are both playing late games they must win to have any shot at a post-season appearance. In Greensboro, not Georgia. Despite those compelling factors, the Coliseum was empty enough that you could actually hear the dribbled ball on the hardwood. Oy.

Those of us who think the ACC's tournament is the premier one in the country know this year is an aberration, what with the Heels entering the contest needing a never-before-accomplished four wins in four days to get an NCAA berth.

Commissioner John Swofford and the league can't be blamed for this being - EGADS! - a down year for hoops, excluding Duke (and boy, would I like to exclude Duke!), but they can be blamed for not putting fannies in those seats.

Even though the tickets are distributed to each of the conference's schools, unsold tickets are returned to the league. It should've been as easy as an uncontested layup to set up some sort of clearinghouse through which unused tickets could've been distributed to poor kids and adults, right? How difficult could that be? With the state's unemployment rate above 11 percent, you can hardly shoot an air ball that doesn't plunk someone in need.

That, said Carol Aupperle, a Cary homemaker who suggested the ticket giveaway to me, "would have been far better than featuring the fact that so many fair-weather fans who could afford tournament tickets decided to waste those tickets and desert their teams. Empty seats just look sad on TV."

Preach, sister. It's understandable that no one wants to go watch in person as their team gets steamrolled by a very good Duke team that is indisputably the cream of the crop this year. Even if your team stinks next year, though, and you decide to stay home because you'd rather French kiss a snaggletooth llama that's been eating Oreo cookies than watch any team besides your own holding the trophy aloft, your tickets would be a blessing to some poor kid or struggling family. Some may argue, of course, that they've suffered enough.

Attending the ACC Tournament, for many people, would still be a thrill. Frank Sinatra is quoted as saying money is like manure: It's no good unless you spread it around. The same can be said for unused ACC Tournament tickets.